Cyber Warfare and Internet's Role in Conflicts and Political Unrest to Be Addressed at National Security Symposium

Home > News > March 2013 Headlines > Cyber Warfare and Internet's Role in Conflicts and Political Unrest to Be Addressed at National Security Symposium

By Catharine Skipp &nbsp | &nbsp Posted: March 25, 2013

Miami Law's National Security and Armed Conflict Law Review will host a panel discussion titled "The Internet and Armed Conflict" on April 12 at the Storer Auditorium on the university's Coral Gables campus. The panelists will be Miami Law alumna Donna A. Bucella, JD '83, Assistant Commissioner at U.S. Customs & Border Protection; U.S. Air Force Major General Charles Dunlap (Retd.), Professor at Duke University School of Law; Jamil Jaffer, Republican Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and another alumnus, Michael Mullaney, JD '88, Chief of the Counterterrorism Section at the Department of Justice.

The event, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., will focus on cyber warfare and the role of the internet in conflicts and political upheavals across the globe. Such topics have been in the news recently in the wake of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, President Obama's executive order on cyber security, and a recent report in which U.S. intelligence leaders said for the first time that cyber attacks and cyber espionage had supplanted terrorism as the top security threat facing the United States.

Donna Bucella was appointed in 2010 to her role in U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison. Before that, Bucella served in the U.S. Army and retired with the rank of colonel. She was the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. She served as the first Director of the Terrorist Screening Center at the FBI and was deeply involved in the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing. As U.S. Attorney, she had a special emphasis on cyber crimes, narcotics, espionage, healthcare, financial fraud, and public corruption. Bucella graduated from the University of Virginia and earned her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. She has won numerous awards, including the Attorney General's Exceptional Service Award in 1997 and the Legion of Merit in 2008.

The other Miami Law alumnus on the panel, Michael Mullaney, is a 34-year veteran of law enforcement. The Counterterrorism Section he leads is responsible for the investigation, prosecution and prevention of acts of terrorism anywhere in the world that affect United States interests and citizens. Mullaney graduated from Miami Law with honors in December 1988. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida for 14 years, Mullaney played the lead role in a number of drug, money laundering and public corruption investigations and prosecutions, and for part of that time was Chief of the Public Corruption/Civil Rights Section. He also served a stint as Acting First Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Illinois.

Jamil Jaffer serves as a Republican Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Before that, Jaffer served as Senior Counsel for the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States House of Representatives and as an Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University School of Law, where he taught a seminar on surveillance law. Jaffer served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and Intelligence Community matters. Jaffer also served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division of the United States Department of Justice, where he handled a wide range of national security issues, with a focus on counterterrorism and intelligence matters, and in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, where, among other things, he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

General Charles Dunlap, the former deputy judge advocate general of the United States Air Force, joined the Duke Law faculty in July 2010. His teaching and scholarly writing focus on national security, international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, and military justice. Maj. Gen. Dunlap retired from the Air Force in June 2010, having attained that rank as the culmination of a 34-year career in the Judge Advocate Corps. In his capacity as deputy judge advocate general from 2006 to 2010, he assisted the judge advocate general in the supervision of more than 2,200 judge advocates, 350 civilian lawyers, 1,400 enlisted paralegals, and 500 civilians around the world. In addition to overseeing an array of military justice, operational, international and civil law functions, he provided legal advice to the Air Staff and commanders at all levels. In the course of his career, Maj. Gen. Dunlap has been involved in various high-profile interagency and policy matters, highlighted by his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives concerning the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The panel is free and open to the public. The Storer Auditorium is on the ground floor of the School of Business complex. Parking is available at the Pavia Garage one block south of Stanford Drive at the main entrance to UM off Ponce de Leon Boulevard.